


circumstantial

by meguri_aite



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 10:04:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7636012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meguri_aite/pseuds/meguri_aite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>History was a record written in ink spilling freely from human veins, cities and roads, and the Bookmen were the paper that soaked it up.</p>
  <p>Bookman Junior, sixteen, an exorcists and a Lavi now, had this memorized perfectly. He had everything memorized perfectly; that was what he did. </p>
  <p>He also wasn’t terribly impressed.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	circumstantial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerbutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerbutterfly/gifts).



History was a record written in ink spilling freely from human veins, cities and roads, and the Bookmen were the paper that soaked it up.

Bookman Junior, sixteen, an Exorcist and a Lavi now, had this memorized perfectly. He had everything memorized perfectly; that was what he did. 

He also wasn’t terribly impressed. It didn’t take forty-eight wars to notice that it was awfully sloppy writing, repetitive to the point of dullness. The narrative rambled, backtracked, left sentences hanging, but never quite stopped; it was a generous hand that poured the ink, as if it’d never run out. And who knew, maybe it wouldn’t.

The new war was not different. Nor was it new, really: in the hundred years of fighting mechanical contraptions of wire and heartstrings, held together by cold intent and propelled by blind grief, the Black Order had become a venerable institution. Bookman Junior took in the high ceilings and arches lined with bookshelves, heavy gilded portraits on the walls, and the faint echo that trailed Bookman’s sentences. He nodded through the tirade until its end - Bookman was giving out his customary warnings, which were poor replacement for what his apprentice wanted to hear. Stories from both sides of the war were not unusual for the Bookmen to tell, but the old man refused to divulge any details now. For the integrity of the experiment, he had said. Lavi was a clean slate in hands of the Order, and Bookman wanted it etched only with what Lavi’s eyes saw.

The new persona still sat on his shoulders as stiffly as the starched black uniform on the Order soldiers. He supposed he’d have to get one eventually as well; it was either that or the burial clothing, the two most common outfits for Exorcists. He leaned against the balcony railing to get a better view of the hall downstairs, filling in with people whose expressions were as somber as their attire. The funeral procession offered new faces to be memorized and filed away, but the grief on them was old and familiar: the hot ink of the tear tracks, the ink-blue of the flowers placed in the cold fingers, the bruise-black ink of shadows under eyes and pursed lips.  It spilled and spilled, unhindered, from an upended, bottomless inkwell. He straightened up and turned to leave.

A single, cracked cry broke through the low murmur of voices below, stopping him in his tracks.  A young girl clung to one of the coffins with bone-white hands, as if hoping to drag the person inside back to life if only she held on to the wood hard enough. Her form was slumped, long legs having given under her, but her eyes were hot and angry like boiling tar.

Loss and grief were universal, written in the same unflinching hand, but one could stop and admire the inkwork, sometimes.

* * *

He broke in his name as he did his new standard-issue shoes, and if there were any stiff crinkles, they went unnoticed under his bright scarves and brighter smiles. Lavi was, after all, a cheerful young man, approachable and easy to get along with.

Well, Lenalee had left him no room for any alternative, to be honest. Once she purposefully strode towards him on his first day, and blithely forged him into her comrade and new best friend over a single breakfast, it was already too late to pull away.

They were sitting in the dining hall again, in the dreary hour that was late enough into the night to be early morning, just back from a mission that had dragged them through every back alley around Whitechapel. Lenalee was berating a Finder - Jonas, seventeen and short-sighted, a Glasgow orphan and a recent recruit - for earlier recklessness, as if she hadn’t been the one who spent the night jumping from one slippery roof to another, the heavy rain swallowing the sound of loose tiles crumpling under the weight of her Dark Boots. She was cradling a cup of tea in her hands, knuckles white and fingertips angry red. 

“What were you thinking even?” she asked, staring accusingly over the steam from her tea. Jonas had thrown himself between her and the man believed to be an Accommodator until he had revealed himself to be just a regular serial killer.

“I had to protect you,” Jonas persisted, yet unaware that arguing with her was like climbing up the Black Order campanile with oiled hands. “My job is to assist the Exorcists, and this man jumped at you after admitting he was responsible for twelve murders just in the last month!”

Lenalee shrugged, letting the knowledge slide off her as easily as his concern. She had her priorities, and they were humanitarian only as far as her definition of her humans went. 

“He was just an ordinary man. He was not an Akuma, or an Accommodator - he wouldn’t have been able to do anything against an Exorcist. We’re made of sturdier stuff,” her lips were curled in a smile that was just marginally warmer and softer than her hands, “unlike the Finders. You’re our important comrade, but you shouldn’t be the one rushing into battle. In future, you should stay away and let us handle it. Isn’t that right, Lavi?”

He nodded agreeably, taking a scalding gulp from his own cup. “Listen to her, Jonas, my man. You know who’ll be upset if you don’t.”

Lenalee gave him the cutest of her smiles, which in effect was the shortest warning of impending violence anyone ever got from her. She didn’t hold back when she nudged him under the ribs (and he had learnt not to dodge, because Lavi was a bit of a pushover like that), but her eyes were already scanning the crowd for a familiar white robe. Chief Komui was nowhere to be seen, however; a fact that Lavi attributed to the high likelihood of Komui having passed out in exhaustion in the lab, where he’d have locked himself up in worry for his sister. Everyone had their priorities, but few had the devotion to constantly rebuild their life around them; and a surprising number of those seemed to have congregated under this roof.

Lenalee must have been thinking along the same lines, because the skin around her eyes  tightened with worry; she was undoubtedly itching to head in the direction of the Science Division. Lavi moved along the bench to let her pass, but his motion was stopped by the weight of her arm on his shoulder.

“Besides, you know I wasn’t alone, right?” she said. She was addressing Jonas, but her fingers were tugging at Lavi’s hair. “Lavi had my back.”

Wincing, Lavi carefully caught her by the wrists, extracting her hand from his hair before she started seriously pulling at it, in her signature blend of display of affection and bodily harm. Delivery of the message aside, her conviction was uncomfortably iron-clad.

“But Lavi’s a Bookman,” said Jonas with merited dubiousness - not stupid, for one so young. “I mean - he could have been occupied with his own tasks.” The apology in his tone was misplaced, however. The Black Order could do with less blind faith, if it was concerned about its survival more than its warfare.

“I’m a man of many talents, my friend,” Lavi waved him off with a mock salute. “Exorcist by day, Bookman Junior by night. Have you seen the bags under old man Panda’s eyes? It’s a tough job, is what I’m saying, doing all that and still looking like I do.”

He thought he heard Lenalee eyeroll at that, just before he felt a painful pinch on his cheek.

“See, Jonas? You shouldn’t have worried. I know he’d have jumped in to help if I needed it, and I’d have done the same for him, and we’d have both stepped into the fight before you’d need to. That’s how it works.”

With a last tug of his hair - ouch! - Lenalee left. 

Lavi would, indeed, have jumped in. He’d do well to act the part as well as to remember it.

* * *

“Anyone here?” Lavi poked his nose into the kitchen area, but no one paid him any mind. Not one to let an opportunity slip, he shrugged and pinched an apple from the counter; that at least earned him a glare from the cook.

“You need anything? Dinner’s in two hours.”

“No, just wondering where everyone went.” The Exorcists were always scattered all over the place, working odd hours in small groups, but usually at least a couple of them could be seen in the dining hall, library or the training ground. Lavi was bored - his last mission was a solo one, which, despite its success, seemed downright uneventful in comparison to the travelling circus that missions transformed into if Allen and Kanda were involved. So Lavi had started his rounds with the dining hall, assuming one or both of them would be here, five minutes and Allen’s preternatural hunger away from starting a food fight. But the hall was truly too quiet to contain either of them, and Bookman had disappeared along with everyone else, too.

“Summoned, maybe? I hear some Central higher-ups dropped by unannounced,” the cook said. “Got orders to make the dinner today bigger than usual, and that’s why you should be off and not getting in my way.”

Narrowly avoiding the cook’s long wooden spoon and pocketing a second apple on the way, Lavi made himself scarce. A visit from Central sure explained Panda’s disappearance - the old man still clung to the notion of Lavi’s independent observation, though it was getting muddier these days, just like his uniform, covered in layers of grime and blood so familiar he had stopped noticing it.

News about Central also gave him a pretty good idea where he could find at least two of the Order members. Find, but not disturb.

Lavi stopped before taking the last turn that would lead him into the quiet room not far from the training grounds; instead, he turned left and stayed in the hallway just outside the room. Trying to make his steps light as a cat’s, he walked up to the ornate windows styled in the Chinese fashion, and took a look inside.

Two silhouettes, seated in perfect symmetry next to one another, told Lavi his hunch was right. Limbs arranged in a vajra posture, the delicate angle of neckline and a slight curve of spine so precise they could have been left by a brush stroke of Asian calligraphers, they were near mirror images of each other, the differences in their build only emphasizing the same exquisite beauty they shared. Kanda was still and brilliant as a lake at night, and Lenalee - well, no surprise she looked perfectly in place, seated next to him. She was good at carving out places to belong. 

“What’s this about, again.” Kanda’s voice was raspy from the long silence, but no less cranky for it. Lenalee hunched her shoulders, breaking the magic of their symmetric arrangement, which immediately earned her a scolding. “Sit up straight, didn’t I teach you how it’s done.”

She laughed sheepishly and straightened her posture.

“Sorry, Kanda, sorry, I remember!” Encouraged by something that occurred to her, she laughed again, more easily this time. “I also remember how you used to grumble about my hair getting in the way - remember those ties? You were an absolute monster about that.”

“If you’re feeling so nostalgic, do you want me to kick you out again? I can still do that.” 

There was no true venom in his voice, just the low gruffness that was downright friendly in Kanda-speak. She also knew it, because she just whispered, “Too bad no one can mistake you for a girl again, even if your hair is still prettier than mine. It’s unfair.”

“Last warning,” Kanda growled without opening his eyes. “That guy from Central isn’t here today, so I’m totally kicking you out.”

Lenalee didn’t shift an inch, but every line of her body went infinitesimally softer, the tension of a string pulled too tight no longer there. No more sounds reached Lavi’s ears, but he could see the tranquil rise and fall of their chests, a picture harmonious and elegant like a Chinese character on old paper.

Quietly, Lavi returned to the spot where the corridor branched out, and sat with his back against the wall, barricading the way to the meditation hall. It was only fitting that a Bookman would want to preserve beautiful writings, he thought wryly.

* * *

Memories recorded that Lavi doesn’t want to remember, would scratch off bloody if he could: a ship, wrecked; hair, burned short; bird-like stump of Innocence, leaning hungrily over pale, bruised legs; blood butterflies breaking through stigmata on torn skin.   

Memories recorded with no detail left out: not a single hoarse cry, a quiet curse against the heavens, shattered wall and bone.

Bookman would have been proud, if he hadn’t been so disappointed.

 

If people were ink, hers would be etched under his eyelids, infused in his bloodstream. 

(Lavi would have warned the Noah rummaging in his brain that he seems to have forgotten how to remember anything else, but he doesn’t think he can, anymore.)


End file.
